Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)

Centre for the Study of Civil War

Scott Gates and Kaare Strøm

Fragile Bargains:Civil Conflict and

Power-sharing in Africa

Scott Gates Center for the Study of Civil War, PRIO and

Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU)

and Kaare Strøm

University of California, San Diego andCenter for the Study of Civil War, PRIO

Fragile Bargains:Civil Conflict and Power-

sharing in Africa

The Challenge of Postconflict Institutional Design

• Good Governance & Sustainable Civil Peace

Good governance – effective and fair provision of public goods and services

Credible commitments to uphold conflict resolution agreements

Power Sharing as a Postconflict Institutional Solution

• Involve all potential spoilers in government decision-making

• Give all parties a stake in cooperation and provide mutual guarantees of security and basic interests

• Reduces the threat of conflict

The Logic of Power Sharing

• Focus on ex post certainty and fairness–Fair division of the political pie –Counters perceptions of bias and

exclusion–Entice warring parties to cease

fighting

Is Power-sharing Democratic?

• Przeworski’s (1991) conception of democracy:• ex ante uncertainty and • ex ante openness of democratic

contestation• Strøm (1992) adds• procedural performance sensitivity

• Ex post guarantees run counter to all three characteristics of democracy

Essence of Power-sharing

• Ex post fairness over• Ex ante uncertainty and • Procedural Performance

Sensitivity

• Importance of fairness in post-conflict environments

Expanding the Notion of Power Sharing

• Inclusive Power sharing – mandate inclusion

• Dispersed Power sharing – mandate constraints

Inclusive Power-sharing Arrangements

• Grand (cabinet) coalitions• Inclusive executive or advisory councils, such

as electoral commissions• Mutual veto arrangements• Proportional or broadly inclusive rules for civil

service and other administrative appointments• Reserved executive offices for particular parties

or social groups• Proportional representation (PR) electoral

systems, especially closed-list

Dispersed Power-sharing Arrangements

• Autonomous sub-national levels of government

• Independent institutions that ban partisan representation (e.g. Judicial appointments)

• Non-partisan electoral commissions• Restrict civil servants from membership

in political parties• Separation of religious communities and

the state• Electoral systems featuring primary

elections, personal preference votes, or transferable votes

Problems with Power Sharing• Spoilers• Rigidity• Transaction costs• Inclusion squeezes out civil society

Power-sharing and Ex Post Fairness

Spoiler Problems

•Military leaders – credible outside option

•Splinter groups• Incumbents unwilling to leave office

Problems with Dispersed Power Sharing

• Implementation–Trust issues–Weak civil society

–need to work to foster and develop indigenous NGOs

Power-sharing in Sub-Saharan Africa

• Problems of patrimonial societies

• Perceptions of procedural bias and exclusion

• Role of civil society